Sociology

(Violence and Society)

A man in a sports shirt setting fire to a car

We work with partners to address interpersonal conflict using empirical, practical and theoretical links between violence and security. Through research, training and evaluations we put the victims of violence at the centre of solution-focused work.

Human dignity, fundamental rights and human security set moral and ethical standards by which citizens can develop their potential. However, these standards continue to be frequently disregarded through painful acts of violation in everyday life e.g. in schools, homes, at work, in public spaces and networked publics. The consequences are devastating for social participation and growth.

At Security Lancaster, Lancaster University's multidisciplinary research centre, our approach to research on sociology is not to separate violations in the digital and physical world, but to understand and respond to new and emerging challenges to human security as a result of violence in a global context.

Our multidisciplinary team retains a focus on gender, generation and other sources of social division whilst tracing connections and associations that make women and men, girls and boys, children and older people safe and unsafe.

We aim to empower victims and mitigate perpetrator behaviour to effect changes in formal and informal practices that are driven by a grounded approach and the latest advances in software development, social theory, measurement and ethics. Our work is accessible across a range of contexts and we work closely with law enforcement, local authorities, health and social care agencies and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Access Sociology Expertise:

  • Child protection
  • Conflict resolution
  • Cyberbullying and stalking
  • Gang violence
  • Gender violence
  • Hate crime
  • Interpersonal violence
  • Offender profiling
  • Theorising violence and security
  • Victim experience and identification
  • Violence research methodologies
  • Youth violence

Members

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Publications and Projects

Projects

Open Book Futures
01/05/2023 → 30/04/2026
Research

Exploring Generative AI with Primary School Children
01/09/2022 → …
Research

Co-designing audio games with the blind and partially sighted community
18/02/2022 → 17/06/2022
Research

Phoenix Takes Flight (PTF): exploring usability and scalability challenges with community-based health support via social prescribing.
12/02/2022 → 11/02/2024
Research

The Effectiveness of Social Media Screening and the Impact of Increased Anonymity and Encryption in Policing
01/01/2022 → 31/12/2022
Research

Trust Me? (I’m an Autonomous Machine)
12/04/2021 → 31/03/2022
Research

FLF: The Next Generations: Design Research in the 21st Century
01/11/2020 → 23/01/2025
Research

TAS-S: Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Node in Security
01/11/2020 → 31/10/2024
Research

E3: AHRC Design Fellowships: Challenges of the Future 2020
01/02/2020 → 30/06/2020
Research

ISF: Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs
01/11/2019 → 30/04/2023
Research

PETRAS 2 - Uncanny AI (UncanAI)
01/08/2019 → 01/05/2021
Research

Augmented Humanity: Does the Human Enhance the Machine or the Machine Enhance the Human?
01/01/2019 → 29/10/2019
Research

Suicide Prevention using Analytics and Cybernetics Elements
01/10/2018 → …
Research

Goshna: Accessible Airport Announcements for the Deaf or Hard of Hearing
01/08/2018 → …
Research

New Platforms for Open Access Book Distribution
01/04/2018 → 30/06/2018
Research

Eating Disorder in the Digital Age
11/11/2017 → 31/07/2018
Research

Understanding, Predicting and Preventing Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and thoughts amongst adolescents: how can technology help?
11/11/2017 → 31/07/2018
Research

Graphic Futures
17/10/2017 → 30/06/2018
Research

TrackWater: Supporting High-Value, Low-Cost Rail Network Drainage Asset Management
01/10/2017 → 31/03/2019
Research

Cyber Security of the Internet of things
28/02/2016 → 31/08/2019
Research

Design Fiction: The Movie Joe Lindley
01/02/2016 → 31/03/2018
Research

Study on comprehensive policy review of anti-trafficking projects funded by the European Commission
01/01/2016 → 30/09/2019
Research

Trafficking: Study on the gender dimension of trafficking in human beings
31/12/2014 → 30/09/2015
Research

Data for Article 11 of the Istanbul Convention
01/10/2014 → 30/06/2018
Research

FP7: SecinCoRe: Secure dynamic cloud for information, communication and resource interoperability....
01/05/2014 → 30/04/2017
Research

Digital Technologies of Debt Resilience
03/02/2014 → 03/06/2014
Other

Analysing methodologies to determine the economic costs of gender-based violence in the EU
01/12/2013 → 31/07/2017
Research

FI-Content2
01/11/2013 → 31/12/2014
Research

FIRB: Mixture and latent variable model for causal inference and analysis of socio-economic data
01/10/2013 → 30/09/2016
Research

A Sociology of Values and Value
01/09/2013 → 31/01/2017
Research

Is the Rate of Domestic Violence Decreasing or Increasing? A Re-Analysis of the British Crime Survey
01/04/2013 → 30/09/2014
Research

Research on Gender Policy
01/03/2013 → 28/02/2015
Research

Tackling child sexual exploitation: Offences and victims
01/02/2013 → 31/12/2013
Research

Applied Quantitative Methods Network: Phase II
01/01/2013 → 30/06/2017
Research

Overview of the worldwide best practices for rape prevention & assisting women victims of rape
01/11/2012 → 31/10/2014
Research

New models and analyses for social networks and criminological careers
01/03/2012 → 31/12/2016
Research

fEC Code - Criminal Careers Within Organised Crime
01/02/2012 → …
Research

Fetal Movement and Development
01/01/2012 → 30/09/2017
Other

Gender quotas in management boards
01/01/2012 → 31/03/2012
Research

VAW Services
08/08/2011 → 30/11/2011
Research

FP7: iCOP
01/06/2011 → 30/11/2013
Research

Social media, social good
01/11/2010 → 30/04/2012
Research

Evaluation of the peer support for the senior social work managers pilot programme
01/02/2010 → 31/03/2011
Research

National Centre for Research Methods Node Phase 2 Lancaster - Warwick - Stirling
01/10/2008 → 31/03/2012
Research

10 years of the UNESCO Chair in Gender Research
01/04/2008 → …
Research

Reconviction predictions
01/01/2007 → 15/11/2007
Research

Previous collaborations
01/11/2005 → 01/01/2014
Other

Homicide and the Media
01/01/1997 → …
Other